Flexible Electronic Patch for Bone Healing via Resonant PEMF
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for treating bone fractures, especially those requiring surgical intervention, often lead to muscle and nerve damage, prolonged recovery times, and a significant risk of delayed healing or nonunion.
Innovation Solution
An electronic patch that produces pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) to stimulate tissue healing, optionally using a resonant energy-saving circuit to recycle field energy, allowing for a smaller and thinner battery, and is designed to be flexible and conform to body surfaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If surgical intervention with internal fixation is used to treat bone fractures, then bone healing is promoted, but muscle and nerve damage occurs and recovery time is prolonged
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces mechanical surgical intervention (internal fixation devices, osteosynthesis) with non-invasive electromagnetic field therapy. The PEMF device generates pulsed electromagnetic fields that stimulate bone healing without requiring surgical incisions, implants, or mechanical manipulation of soft tissues, thereby eliminating muscle and nerve damage while promoting bone healing.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces electromagnetic fields as an intermediary between the external environment and the bone healing process. The PEMF device acts as a mediator that delivers therapeutic energy through the body's natural tissues without direct mechanical contact, stimulating osteogenesis and fracture healing while avoiding the harmful mechanical effects of traditional surgery.
2Reliability
If surgical intervention with internal fixation is used to treat bone fractures, then bone healing is promoted, but recovery time is prolonged
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces time-consuming mechanical recovery processes with electromagnetic field stimulation. By using PEMF therapy, the bone healing process is accelerated through biological stimulation without the extended recovery periods required for mechanical fixation devices to be removed and for soft tissues to recover from surgical trauma.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables continuous or near-continuous electromagnetic field application to the fracture site, providing uninterrupted stimulation for bone healing. This continuous action contrasts with the intermittent and limited duration of mechanical fixation, allowing the healing process to proceed without the time losses associated with surgical intervention and device removal.
3Reliability
If conventional electromagnetic field therapy is used, then bone healing is stimulated, but energy consumption is high requiring large batteries
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs pulsed electromagnetic fields rather than continuous fields, applying energy in periodic bursts. This periodic action allows the system to achieve effective bone healing stimulation while significantly reducing overall energy consumption, as the coil is energized only during pulse delivery and remains in a low-power state between pulses.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent recovers and reuses electromagnetic energy from the pulsed fields. The energy stored in the magnetic field during each pulse is partially recovered and reused in subsequent pulses, reducing the total energy that must be supplied by the battery and thereby reducing battery size requirements.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The electronic patch effectively promotes bone healing and regeneration by stimulating osteogenesis, potentially reducing recovery time, minimizing muscle and nerve damage, and lowering the risk of delayed union or nonunion.
Implementation Method 1
a coil, which generates pulsed electromagnetic fields at a target site, to promote tissue healing
Implementation Method 2
which uses a resonant energy-saving circuit to recycle field energy from one pulse to the next
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic patch, for stimulating tissue healing at a target site, is flexible enough to generally conform to a body surface adjacent to the target site, and includes a battery or an arrangement of multiple batteries less than 5 mm thick; a capacitor connected durectly with a coil in series; and pulse generating circuitry, powered by the battery or batteries. The circuitry repeatedly changes the voltage across the capacitor and coil, to produce pulses of current in the coil. The current produces a pulsed electromagnetic field at the target site for stimulating tissue healing, most of the electromagnetic field energy of each pulse being converted into electrostatic energy of the capacitor at the end of the pulse and back into electromagnetic field energy of the next pulse.